The Last Jedi: Aftermath
by WWHP1729
Summary: Rey and the Resistance are left devastated after the events of Crait, and a new figure rises to power to wipe the Rebellion from the galaxy once and for all. I do not own this universe. All credit goes to the creators, canon and legends writers. New chapters will be published as soon as possible.
1. An Encounter With Darkness

Chapter One

An Encounter with Darkness

 _Rey stood alone in darkness, with water from an invisible sea lapping around her. The hilt of a lightsaber cleaved in two sat in her left hand, the crystal inside glowing in its housing. Fire then bloomed around her in her black abyss, circling her in flame. A man, or what was left of his severed torso, parted the flames and floated through, revealing a crooked and fleshy, scarred face as he entered the light. Rey was promptly knocked over by an invisible wind, causing the destroyed lightsaber to fall from her hand._

" _Fulfill your destiny!"_

 _Snoke's words knocked Rey backwards as if there were a storm in the abyss, and she hit, finally, hard and genuinely solid floor. She lifted her head, and saw the flaming red curtains and toppled throne, Snoke's hand still lying on the armrest like a morbid ornament. A ghostly figure came up behind her, and gripped her violently by the neck, restricting her lungs. Rey fought the nonexistent figure with her fists as she blacked into nothingness once again, and also once again, falling into the loop._

This time Rey did not scream as she awoke from the cold grip of the man she had taken part in killing. It wasn't the first time she had experienced it, and she knew it definitely wouldn't be the last. She glanced around the room, addressing the abrupt feeling of the absence of the Millennium Falcon. It took her only a few seconds before she realized that she had been placed as an assistant upon one of the thousands of Resistance cruisers transporting refugees. A blue vortex sped along outside the floor length window stretched across the wall, suggesting they had gone into lightspeed recently. Rey kicked her sheets off and swung herself out of bed, dressing herself in her usual coarse cloth tunic and reached for the skin of the half-built lightsaber hilt she had been using as a pastime. She then realized she had implicitly modeled it after the broken one Luke Skywalker had once used, before his hand was severed and before he had died from overextending himself. She flinched and got to work, prodding it with a makeshift welder and saw, frequently making it spark and smolder. Rey minutely turned her head to the blue-tinted crystal sitting on the desk across from her, that had luckily survived the full effect of the Force tugging at it. Soon, after half an hour, the chrome casing had been polished beyond perfection and the crystal inserted into the mess of wires concealed inside its compartment. The time was now. Rey reached out with her mind and emotions, feeling for the Force that surrounded her at all times. Sure enough, as always, she had found it, and tugged at it with all of her mental strength. The casing hovered into the air, and more slowly, the rest of the scattered components. Rey concentrated harder, and carefully fit the pieces together, locking them in place. Unfortunately, she had missed the attention of a tiny screw, which was nowhere near its correct slot, and eventually caused the lightsaber to split in two and fall to the ground where she scooped it up before the delicate components could hit the ground. She sighed, annoyed and set the halves on the desk once more, and continued out the door of her quarters. Men in bleak tan uniform and yellow-visored helmets rushed past, likely training or addressing a small inconvenience. Suddenly, her mood improved as she remembered the only thing that had actually helped her since Luke's death: Finn. Rey slowly trudged through the hallways to the bridge, where she had been let on that she was always welcome when the times arose. The doors opened slowly, as the cruiser was the least the fleet could offer without having to sacrifice a valuable cargo freighter or the even rarer stealth cruisers. Rey again, trudged in, and immediately got a shock. The consoles strewn across the room all displayed images of a First Order warship, but when Rey rapidly glanced to the viewport, there was nothing visible. She whipped around, turning to a very concerned and worried General Leia Organa, who's expression deepened when she saw Rey.

"What's happening?" Rey spoke before Leia could answer her clearly visible unspoken questions. Leia turned to the viewport and replied worriedly, "We have come across a small crisis."

Rey turned and assessed the consoles even further, skimming through the Aurebesh writing and descriptions.

 _A cloaked warship, Rey_ thought as she turned the situation over several times in her mind. If the First Order had gained the technology to create ships like this in the past few months since the Resistance's forces had been replenished, then the Resistance still stood no chance against them even with their more experienced leader dead, and the replacement a hot-tempered buffoon. A surge of anger washed up into Rey's body as she thought of Kylo Ren, causing her to ball her fists. He was likely on the cloaked ship right now, preparing to wipe out the Resistance that wouldn't ever seem to die.

"Keep it quiet," Leia interjected. "if this gets out, the entire crew will erupt into chaos."

"I understand," Rey acknowledged and sat in the nearest chair. She searched the bridge, and only came across high-level officials, and then one thing that stood out. Surprisingly, the one thing she had come for.

"Rey?" Finn exclaimed, suggesting that he had known about the crisis. Across the room, Leia nodded to Finn in acceptance.

Finn's PoV

Finn knew he had no time left. Ever since he had been promoted, or at least given a position. Now, the First Order had showed up, searching for the cruiser he was on. He had never assumed it was just about him, as it was entirely about the refugees and the survival of an otherwise finished organization. His actual position as an authority wasn't clarified or very solidified, so his power was limited. He turned the idea over in his mind a few times, attempting to clarify the motives of the Empire's attack. The essence made sense, but why stay hidden if they clearly already had the element of surprise? The rest was a confusing disarray, which he presumed was just what the First Order desired. Judging by the scans, the minimal forces and weapons upon the cruiser that was mainly built for transportation wouldn't hold long against the armored Dreadnought-resembling ship. He had worked with the First Order before he left his life behind, but had never been let in on projects like this one, that with the proper use, could annihilate all threats. Finn ran through a list of all the resources that he had seen shipment of carried in, and judging by his extensive (but usually circumstantially minimal) knowledge of valuable materials, he knew what they had used to create this. Rey turned her head, surprised, as Finn shoved past many of the officers and started typing away at one of the consoles. His eyes fluttered across the database of files and searched keyword after keyword until he found what he was looking for.

 _FN-2187 trudged along a sandy and deserted beach, the ocean beyond a cruelly pale and sickly blue. Another stormtrooper, his training supervisor, trudged along in front of him, his armor flaked with desert sand. 2187 turned his helmet styled like an engorged skull in the other direction, revealing a vast and seemingly endless desert. The Outer Rim planet Volia was, according to his supervisor, rich with valuable resources that 2187 could never seem to understand._

" _Keep up!" the other yelled from ahead, stopping in his tracks to wait. Sand somehow found a way into 2187's helmet, slowing him down even further. The supervisor lifted a device in his right hand, and started searching near a small cave composed of sandstone and scrap metal._

" _What're we looking for?" 2187 inquired bluntly, with his inexperienced mind. Given his lack training successes, 2187 had never been informed on the actual mission, only the goal and circumstances of the place._

" _If you must know," the supervisor told him without looking up from the device, "A crystal."_

 _2187 waited for him to elaborate, but there was only silence as he continued to search._

" _It's harder than it sounds."_

" _I don't see how-."_

" _Listen, kid," the supervisor snapped, turning from the device. "you don't understand. If the First Order wants it, they'll get it, no questions asked."_

 _2187 had never done the latter, no matter how much he implicitly disagreed with their methods. Soon after, his supervisor crouched down as he came across the tiny cave, staring at something that appeared invisible. He reached out, and plucked the translucent crystal from its resting place in the heap of stone, and stored it in an armored case hanging from his belt._

" _Ghostfire crystals," the supervisor thought aloud, and 2187 took a second to realize he was being talked to._

" _I assume you're familiar with Ren's lightsaber?" he inquired, and 2187 discreetly nodded._

" _The crystals that power every lightsaber are no match for this one."_

 _2187 suppressed the urge to laugh, imagining a world-killing saber._

" _What're they for?"_

" _Classified kid. I've already told you too much. If Phasma finds out, I'm already dead."_

Finn clutched the corner of the armrest until the metal cut into his skin and he began to bleed. Sure enough, his supervisor, who had only given his name as FN-6189, was executed the next day. He released the armrests and stood up, walking toward Rey and Leia.

"How familiar are you with Ghostfire crystals?"

Rose Tico had never had a good life, and the constant shaking of the cruiser while she was working on the ship's hyperdrive definitely didn't help. Nobody around her seemed to be fazed by the problems, and whenever she tried in inquire, they all brushed it off as a technical problem, which Rose had investigated and proved fallible. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no external attackers above, so she had no proof outside of the perfect condition of the engines. She had searched for hours just for a cause but the most problematic parts (short of people) were fine. Aside from her problems with technical difficulties, after she was knocked comatose on Crait, everyone seemed to be distant, like they were all outside of a tiny glass tank that Rose had been sealed inside. That was before the airlock across from her exploded, and air rushed outwards, ripping her from her rack and wrenching her hands from the pipe she had desperately grabbed in an attempt to save her life. Before she could scream, emptiness filled her lungs and she was thrown into a black void.

Kylo Ren's PoV

Ren sat emotionless, staring out the viewport of the bridge as his artillery unleashed a barrage of fire. It had been a tedious enough task to create the invisible warship in the first instance, and rigging the ship to be silent and stealthy was another task to be recognized, but none of it compared to the waiting. It had been from many points in the project, and he was done. Starkiller Base's destruction had been a major setback on the aptly named Project Specter, and had consumed a wide range of the First Order's access to resources, especially Ghostfire crystals. The form of kyber crystals had been the outright most challenging task, considering they only appeared on Outer Rim planets and those that wanted to show themselves to. _A small price to pay,_ Ren thought as he lifted himself from the throne of his toppled master. The guilt of killing Snoke was almost nonexistent, as he had blamed it on the girl who had swiftly betrayed him. He searched his mind, appalled that he had already forgotten her name. Rey, was it? He balled his fists and dropped back into the throne as the green bolts of light washed his face in emerald. Their shields were minimal, and the boarding party he had prepared to retrieve his target was ready. Whatever doubt he had held before, it was eradicated now. Ben Solo had, ironically, died with Snoke.

Rey's PoV

Rey rushed to the broken airlock, and slammed herself against the sealed door. Finn followed shortly behind, his face shocked as he saw the level of destruction it had caused. A pang of fear and guilt shot through Rey as she realized that Rose had been working as a maintenance officer in the now gaping hole the ship.

"She's gone…" Finn said quietly and bluntly as he watched flaming scraps of metal float through the air through the tiny porthole. Rey did not reply and stared solemnly out the porthole as an idea drifted into her mind. She pushed herself past Finn without speaking and without thinking over the idea first, and outstretched her hand. She felt for the Force she had searched for so easily before, mentally calling it forward to submit to her will. An invisible hand started feeling for Rose in the void of space, searching for the soul of a girl long forgotten. Suddenly, Rey felt a warm feeling drift into her mind, and she instinctively pulled the body in, her eyes oblivious to who it was until it drifted into the light. The frozen face of Rose Tico fell through the sealed door, which promptly closed after the unconscious girl fell through.

"Rose!" Finn yelled, reaching to grab her face. Rey turned away, a wave of relief and weirdly, sadness as Finn shook Rose with vigor. She had been numbed to the fact that Finn and Rose had been together since Crait, but the waves of pain and jealousy smashed into her brain, mingling her thoughts and emotions together until they were one nonsensical mess.

"Rey!" Finn screamed to her, snapping her out of her daze. Blaster bolts shot by her as she recovered, and observed the source. A squad of black and silver clad Stormtroopers had boarded, firing a barrage of bolts into the walls.

"Get Rose out of here," Rey ordered Finn, and he followed suit.

"Where are you going?"

Rey did not answer as Finn's next words were jumbled in her dash to freedom.

Kylo Ren's PoV

Ren ignited his lightsaber and viciously slashed it towards the Resistance officer as he stepped of the transport. His troopers had already been dispatched to collect prisoners, but he knew internally that Rey had not been apprehended yet. The red glow of the unstable blade he held washed his face in a ruby light, creating an eerie effect as he followed his gut, searching through hallways he had never known. Two troopers followed behind him as he cut through several soldiers like they were made of butter, their screams echoing through the walls. There was no doubt the others had escaped by now, but he had to make _some_ sacrifices to capture the one person that could turn the war around. Soon, Ren turned the corner and impulsively grabbed at the throat of the first person he could see, and he soon got a rush of satisfaction as he realized who it was.

Rey's PoV

Rey felt a coarse hand grab at her throat as she ran around the corner, the vise-like grip tightening around her airways until she could barely breathe. Kylo Ren had found her, and even with a smug smirk on his face as he spat rapid orders to the troopers bring him up. The bag she had procured from her quarters before dashing was hastily yanked from her neck and handed to the men behind her as she started to black out from the lack of air.

 _Godspeed, Rebels,_ she thought as she faded into the darkness.


	2. Inferno

Chapter Two

Inferno

Rey's PoV

All Rey could feel was pain. Her lungs burned like someone had set an impossible fire inside of them, her legs felt like they had been blown off by an explosion, but she knew that the pain was only a reaction. It didn't make sense, from what she recalled. _Choked out by Kylo Ren,_ she thought humorously as her memories restored themselves. A sudden pang of fear shot through her as she realized Finn and Rose had been left behind on the cruiser, that was likely by now either destroyed or abandoned to run out of air and suffocate the refugees that were left. In a sudden burst of adrenaline, she tugged at the restraints tightly bound to her wrists, but she could not get herself free. A worn and hard voice snuck into her mind, booming like a drum inside her brain. It was the voice of Kylo Ren.

"What did he teach you that made you so resilient?" he asked her as her vision began to restore in the darkness. She was strapped to a metal stretcher in an empty room, and Ren crouched to her level, a steely expression on his face. He lifted his hand and tugged at her mind with the Force, trying to siphon he memories off like unwanted grease. She held fast, resisting the pull and plunging her into pain.

"You can't hide it forever, you know," Rey said through gritted teeth. Ren's anger peaked, and he snapped. His lightsaber was swiftly and hastily unhooked from his belt and ignited, filling the room with unstable red light. At that moment, two Stormtroopers casually strolled in, and instantly became collateral damage as Ren quickly and indecisively swung the saber. A pang of fear shot through her as Rey watched the blade catch the first trooper's throat, burning through the pristine white armor and knocking them to the floor in a shower of sparks. The second one was much more fortunate, as he ducked below the blade and crouched below the ground until Ren extinguished the saber.

"Take her to the other," Ren commanded as he stomped out of the room, leaving Rey alone with the surviving trooper and the burning corpse. _What other?_ She thought as she was dragged away.

Poe Dameron had never thought things through thoroughly, and the worst of it was that he knew it would come back to him someday. He had never expected today, however. His memory of the event was fuzzy and blurred, giving him no context into why he was locked in an empty cell in the depths of a Star Destroyer. All he could piece together was that he had been preparing to launch his X-Wing, and there had been a massive explosion. The rest was unreadable. An undefined amount of time had passed since he had been free from the icy metal cuffs eating away at the skin of his wrists, since he had been near a person. His mind began to unwind the events since Crait, from the refugee pickup to the tiny skirmishes, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, and when. Garbled voices emitted from beyond the steely metal door occasionally, but Poe's literally (and metaphorically) bleeding ears couldn't pick up the words. This was exactly why he was shocked nearly to death when the door slid open. A girl with coffee-colored hair and pale skin fell inward, landing on her hands and knees. Her face was familiar, somehow, but the scraps of information in his mind drifted around mindlessly, leaving her name unknown. Muffled speech rang from her mouth as her identity started to reveal itself.

"What did you do to him?" she demanded from the figures in white by the door, trying to break through their defenses. Poe searched his mind farther, addressing the familiarity that she had possessed, but the overall lack of knowledge of his personality. This rang a bell inside his brain, and her name illuminated like a dim lantern in darkness.

 _Rey._

Memories rushed in like raging rapids, washing away the darkness and giving him a sudden burst of adrenaline. He fought the bands restraining him, causing the metal to cut more into his skin and he stopped dead as the pain flooded in.

"Poe," Rey whispered with pity as she fought the bands on her own, and realized that they were lined with spikes. He did not respond, as his vocal cords felt as if they had been coated in molten durasteel. She fought as his bonds physically for another minute before she quit and fell to her knees, defeated. With any luck, only he would die there.

Rey's PoV

Rey was used to constantly fighting for her survival. Jakku had assured that. But she had never given up. It wasn't typical, especially among the scavengers and junk traders who struggled every day on the obsolete desert world, which was the main reason she wished she had left sooner. That feeling no longer stuck with her. A tiny bit of resilience still existed inside her, and in some way, was overpowering. Before she could protest to her own mind, the Force surrounded her consumed her, eating away at her like the ocean against a rocky shore, one grain of sand at a time. She lashed out without remorse or consent, and for the first time since she had known she was force sensitive, she felt unlimited power, like she could do anything. After the brief moment that feeling lasted, she felt ashamed, thinking of the words her former master had once told her.

" _You went straight to the dark."_

Luke Skywalker was dead now, and his teachings came along with him as Rey opened her eyes, and immediately jumped back in horror. Flickering orange light illuminated the room like an enormous fireplace, as there was a vicious ring of flames lapping up against the table that Poe had been strapped to. A thousand thoughts ran through her mind as she tried to comprehend what was happening, what had happened, and then it suddenly dawned on her. Rey shifted her gaze to her hands, where the blunt majority of the Force power had been channeled. Whatever had happened, it had been the result of her anger. Without hesitation, she wrenched Poe from his now melted bonds and brought him to the ground where she proceeded to tug him away from the now ever-expanding ball of flame that had completely eradicated the rest of the room. As she freed herself from her own bonds, she realized she was ready. Ready to take on Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren's PoV

Ren ran the scalpel across his now breached wound, slowly removing the piece of shrapnel that had managed to pierce the bandage he had been wearing since his confrontation on Crait, when he was naïve enough to believe he could strike down the man he had never had the strength to kill when he had better chances, and less conflict. His irrational part of his brain struck down this thought immediately, telling him that he was the Supreme Leader now. It all seemed like a lie. Ren had never seen Snoke's body after he had been severed as the waist by the Skywalker lightsaber, which quickly arose suspicions that nobody else under Ren's command seemed to address. The only thing he did know for certain is that he was not the highest in stature along the chain of command. That presented itself to him the next day after Snoke had been murdered.

" _Ren," the voice said inside his mind, echoing along the walls of his skull. The voice, he had deemed, was emitting from an external source. Surprisingly, there was nobody with enough sheer power to bridge his mind with another's left alive, which drove him insane with theories._

" _I am not an auditory hallucination. Listen," the voice tormented him, relentlessly picking away at Ren's insecurities._

" _Come to the citadel at Corvair. I have something to show you."_

 _The citadel was grimy and cold; the broken stained glass windows a symbol of long-forgotten habitation. A figure stood silently in the rotunda, concealed by a shadowy cloak and an unnatural presence. Ren stood a fair distance away from the figure, fearing exposure._

" _Ben Solo," the figure addressed in a raspy tone._

" _Ben Solo is dead," Ren interjected with seriousness._

" _Ah, I forgot. The man who killed his own leader to take his place and pursue absurd goals is definitely dead."_

 _The exchange ended shortly, Ren's shocked expression saying all that was needed._

" _Be careful who you consort with, Supreme Leader."_

Finn's PoV

There was apparently some genuine fortune in life, for once or never. Finn had managed to board an escaping transport after Rey had abandoned them, taking an unconscious Rose with him. The rest of the refugees, Leia had pertinently explained, had fled along with her and the bridge crew. Finn sighed with relief upon hearing this, which finally gave some promise to the ideologies of the Resistance and Rebellion. Wherever Rey was, she was hopefully catching up.


	3. The Children Of Levithia

Chapter Three

The Children of Levithia

Leia's PoV

The transport shook as it rattled through hyperspace along with fifty other carrying the last of the Resistance. The information Finn had given her was jumbled up in her mind, as she had turned it over too many times. There was no chance against the First Order, but she had told herself that too many times, but this time she couldn't brush it off as a faulty superweapon, as stealth kills more that brute force ever would in the situation the Resistance was confined to, and then it all came together in Leia's mind. The fact that the Order went silent after a few weeks made sense now, and it gave her enough intel onto where they were going, next, but she sat stilly, not calling to action. For all she knew, Rey had never survived, Poe Dameron was long dead, the balanced element of the force was gone completely. She did not give up hope there, as there had been little hope before, in the days of the Empire. Now those days had worsened, and been warped into an even more ruthless empire built on the ruins of a thousand planets. At this thought, Leia, turned her head to the flaming and deserted, thinking of a plan to escape, but her mind turned blank.

Rey's PoV

Rey ad Poe dashed down the hall, avoiding blaster bolts as Rey slashed through the Stormtroopers with the lightsaber she had retrieved. She was ecstatic the haphazard assembly had been successful, but the previously pristine blue blade had been distorted into a sort of greyish-sky blue color. She didn't pay much attention, but she had a decent explanation after researching the crystals. She flinched just thinking about the flames she had conjured out of the raw anger, and brushed it off as just another random phase of the Force. It was never that simple. The flames had burned relentlessly, melting Poe free of his restraints in an instant. She was drifting away, with only a single shred of hope of coming back to the light.

" _It's time for the Jedi to end,"_

Maybe Luke Skywalker was right. She was no Jedi, nor was she a Sith, or a servant to the darkness as Kylo Ren and Snoke had been. Whatever she was, she was alone in the force. She snapped out of it as soon as a Stormtrooper swung a baton at her, which she swiftly blocked and ran the trooper through with her blade. Poe followed her up, firing at the advancing troopers with a stolen blaster he had procured from one of the fallen ones. Before he could react, an idea popped into Rey's mind. she let the anger consume her, letting her mind take to her the places she never wanted to go, and revisit events that should never had occurred in the first place, and she balled up her emotions and lashed out. As she expected, flames spread from the floor at her feet and slammed into a wave of troopers, and with horror, disintegrated them in an instant. Ash drifted down from the ceiling, the only result of the incinerated armor the troopers had been wearing, which offered no protection against the flames. Rey stood in the middle of the inferno, frozen and staring at her palms like they were infected. Poe stared onto this scene, his jaw wide with disbelief. Rey snapped back into focus and instantly dragged on, and Poe followed, again, shortly behind her. She had no idea what she was looking for, but there had to be something she could milk out of the situation before they reported back to the Resistance; intel, intention, an actual _plan._ There was nothing remotely visible or under minimal security, which added to the importance, but there was no time. It wasn't a matter of time before Ren and possibly even Hux discovered them, it was a matter of where upon the massive ship. It was likely they were searching already.

Poe's PoV

As Poe ran along with Rey, he recalled the holding cell he had been in. He had only seen her true power once before, when the Resistance was compacted into a group variable enough to fit into the Millennium Falcon, before they had hope that someone in the galaxy would be strong enough to save them. Now, those limits were gone. He had seen a girl who he had thought was completely powerless, and then revised his thoughts so that she had reached her limits incinerate three Stormtroopers with a wall of flame. He had never consulted Leia about this certain ability, as he doubted she had known about what he had aptly named Force fire. Rey didn't seem to be the type of person that would explain her actions, and she seemed just as baffled by the ability as he was. Were all Jedi this powerful? Did anybody else in the history of the Force ever possess this ability? It was a wave of oncoming questions, and questions that were entirely illogical to begin with. He snapped out of his trance and continued following her as she abruptly turned into a hangar.

"What're you doing?" he hissed under his breath as he realized the hangar was under heavy protection and guard. Figures holding pike-like staffs and dark robes with red visors stood guarding every ship in the docking bay, including the tiny escape pods that Poe assumed were for emergency evacuation. I Rey kept her ability's effectivity up, the Star Destroyer, he predicted, would eventually burn to death.

"Who are they?" Poe inquired, and Rey did not respond as she searched her mind.

"I think," she responded, uncertain. "The Shadow Guard. I've been researching the old days of the Empire. These people live to kill Jedi."

Poe's stomach dropped as he realized his chances, and maybe even Rey's, chances were slim. Rey seemed to realize this as well, as she did not approach the Shadow Guards. Suddenly, the Guards seemed to sense a presence, and brandished their staffs outward, and they ignited, a red and unstable energy blade emanated from the tips. Poe jumped away, and the Guards came into full alert as Rey ignited her own lightsaber, and jumped out of the way as the Guards' blades cut through the metal stack of crates they were hiding behind like butter, and Poe had no choice but to continue scrambling away as the Shadow Guards approached them, cornering them against a shuttle. He watched as Rey jumped out from behind him, doing a smooth roll and thrusting her saber upward, intersecting with the others' and turning the skirmish into a full-on clash duel. Poe reached for the fallen blaster at his feet, but one Guard noticed, and with on decisive, sweep, the blaster was cleaved in two, the edge of the blade catching his palm. He jumped back behind Rey, who was beginning to lose the clash as she was backed into the wall, and in a desperate last attempt, Poe jumped forward, knocking Rey to the ground and giving them enough time to scramble out of the way.

"What was that-!" Rey began, but Poe interrupted abruptly as the Guards swung once more, nearly clipping off Poe's ear. They ran for the nearest escape pod, and they barely managed to detach before the Guards drove their blades into the hull, piercing the thick metal and bursting the pod open. Poe barely screamed before he and Rye shot into the void of space, with no hope of surviving.

Leia's PoV

Leia watched as the field of tiny transports approached a celestial mass, which was exactly as they had planned. Their course over the past few hours had been extremely tedious, as the transports had to pack together to maintain a stable and constant course through hyperspace. She smiled as the planet's name was confirmed by the several stations orbiting the planet, along with the unimportance of the planet to the First Order. Levithia was a small, rainforest-covered world, which could support much more habitation than it had been presented with. It was one of the few Outer Rim resource- rich worlds that hadn't been mined thoroughly by the Empire or First Order for their various projects. It was only a short matter of time before they landed in the thick canopies of the forests, which provided visual cover and, due to the heat and certain defining qualities of the planet, protection from surface scanners. Leia, Finn, Rose, who had woken hours before, exited the pod into the thick air and scorching heat.

"Why here?" Finn inquired expressionlessly as he waved away swarms of alien insects. Leia opened her mouth to explain, but Rose interrupted first.

"Levithia is a dense jungle world, like many Outer Rim planets, but it emits safe levels of radiation that jam scanners that would detect us."

Finn still looked unmoved, as it was just another base and another day for the Resistance. That was before Leia picked up a faint cracking sound near the transports, and then the entire field erupted into chaos. Blaster bolts from an unknown source whizzed, by, but some managed to find their targets, who fell to the ground, stunned. Whoever the attackers were, they were taking prisoners. Not long after, a squad of humanoids dressed in camouflage green stepped out of the jungle, firing and stunning everyone in sight, including Leia and Finn. Rose had apparently rushed off after the first wave, and was nowhere to be seen. Leia resisted the blast, falling to her knees in pain as the effect came into place.

"Who are you?" Leia uttered as her vision faded into blackness.

"We are the Children of Levithia. And this is enemy territory."


End file.
